Sign up here for the Lisbon Treaty Debate on boards.ie - *no debating here*

Hello all.

We're less than two weeks away from the second Lisbon Treaty referendum so as well as setting up our Lisbon Treaty Answers forum, we've decided that as the dead line approaches, we're going to have a debate as the campaigns on both side come to a close in order to help out anyone who's still undecided or maybe change a few minds.

The plan will work as follows:

• We pick 2 teams of 4 people on each side of the debate.
  
• We use the debating chamber forums here on boards:
  • Logos for the debate (only the team members can post here, but everyone will be able to read it as it goes on)
  • Ethos for the judges (We're looking at a team of 3 - this is a private forum for them to discuss the debate)
  • Pathos for the public to discuss how the debate is going (this forum will be moderated with the usual boards.ie rules).

We're inviting people to put their names forward on this thread - state clearly if you're on the Yes or No side. We will review your relevant posts from boards and on Friday, we'll close applications and pick the 4 team members for each side.

Each team will get a private forum where they can talk tactics and strengths/weaknesses over the weekend. This will require a committment of your time, so please be sure that you have the free time necessary to contribute before signing up.

This debate is open to everyone - boards.ie Members, Moderators and Category Moderators are free to put their name forward for either side. boards.ie Admins and Staff are not allowed to enter.

The debate itself will run from Monday 28th to Wednesday 31st (with an option to extend on till the Thursday should there be a need) and the judges are free to deliberate in a manner of their choosing. There will be no specific topics or questions asked of the teams, but if it looks like things are gone stagnant or are spinning around in circles, we may offer in a topic that the public are discussing (from the Pathos forum).

Each team member will be allowed to post in Logos 5 times a day which means that what they say will have to be well constructed and not just a 1 line rebuttal. Because of the nature of this medium for debate, we expect to see links to studies/articles/etc to back up the points being made by either side. We would hope that there's no actual need to moderate the Logos forum, but if we see something that breaks site rules (e.g. Libel or Personal Abuse of an opponent), we may have to step in and edit. This will be as a measure of last resort though as we have no wish to interfere in the debate.

Team members will of course be free to post as often as they like in their team's private forum.

When the teams have been decided on, we'll announce them and the 3 judges on Friday (25th) of this week and the debate will begin on Monday at 10am.

Dav

[edit]
Due to the extended site down-time on Wednesday, we're allowing an extra day to gather people for the teams and will now pick them on Friday instead of Thursday.